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This is what passes for climate change proof?
by user Bookwormroom Elizabeth Kolbert is The New Yorker’s most zealous proponent of man-made global warming. It’s such an article of faith with her that she’s gotten lazy. Take the opening paragraph of her “Talk of the Town” comment in the magazine’s latest issue: :Except in certain benighted precincts—oil-industry-funded Web sites, the Bush White House, Michael Crichton’s den—no one wastes much energy these days trying to deny global warming. Credit Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” or this winter’s snowless ski season in the Alps, or the fact that it was seventy-two degrees in Central Park on January 6th. Still, the release last week of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change represents an important, perhaps even historic, event. In other words, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, you stupid oil companies who deny the truth before your eyes: it didn’t snow much in the Alps and it was hot in Central Park. Of course there’s climate warming — and it’s all your fault.” Rather than argue with her about whether there is human-made climate warming, a subject on which I’m not qualified to talk, let me just approach her at an advocacy level, an area in which I have vast experience. There, I can comfortably say that she’s made the stupidest, unfounded argument I’ve ever seen. You can always tell a bad legal brief when it starts with insults. Insults are the legal equivalent of the adage that “when you have the facts, argue the facts; when you have the law, argue the law; when you have neither facts nor law, yell.” Sticking out her tongue and wagging her fingers at interest groups she doesn’t like is childish and proves nothing. Moving along from the insults, you get Kolbert’s actual “proof” of global warming: this year, we’ve had a dry Alpine winter and a warm central park summer. I’ll get to the former in a minute, but let me first deal with the latter. While January may have been toasty in New York, just the headlines for today tell us that Sweden’s reindeer are starving to death because of thick ice, and that Michigan is experiencing the coldest “beginning of February” in 100 years. You can page through Drudge headlines for the last few weeks and find several similar headlines (Matt Drudge does like his weather) . Therefore, using Kolbert’s algorithm, it’s manifestly clear that, “except in certain benighted precincts,” the globe is cooling. As for the Alpine peculiarity, keep in mind that the press keeps touting the fact that this is the warmest winter in the Alps in 500 years. There’s really no doubt about the fact that it is a stinky Alpine winter that has, expensively, killed the ski season. But think about that last warm Alpine winter, 500 years ago — for the math challenged among us (which would include me), that would see a warm winter in about the year 1500. The year 1500 was part of the Little Ice Age. In other words, you can have warm winters during ice ages. Again, let me say that I reserve judgment on this whole man made global warming thing. The politics have gotten so strident that I no longer trust the conclusions being touted by either side. I will say, though, that the type of argument Kolbert advances is no argument at all. It’s an article of faith, unsupported by the scientific method, that grabs at disparate facts to prove a point, and hides its weaknesses behind harsh, intemperate, insulting language. If this is the best they’ve got, don’t count me amongst the converted. Cross posted at Bookworm Room. Read and comment here. __NOEDITSECTION__ Category: Opinions Category: Opinions by User Bookwormroom Category: February 8, 2007 Category: Global warming Opinions Category: Climate change Opinions Category: winter Opinions Category: Alps Opinions From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.